Tag Archives: Silver Jews

Better Late Than Never: Another Year-End Best-Of List

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If I think that compiling year-end best-of lists are tedious to write, just what exactly does it mean that I want you to read mine? Not much, really – it’s just another exercise one goes through. This kinda thing doesn’t really mean all that much to me, and my answers can change on a whim. And it’s not that I came close to listening to even all the releases with intriguing press releases, or what looked cool in a shop that I put back due to being broke, or whatever. That said, these are all very much worth your while, even without any sort of silly “best-of-2005″ endorsement. So without further ado (in no particular order):

The Weird Weeds, Hold Me (Edition Manifold) CD

I wrote about the Weird Weeds briefly here.

Earth, Hex: Or Printing in the Infernal Method (Southern Lord) CD

Broadcast, Tender Buttons (Warp) CD

Coptic Light, s/t (No Quarter) CD

Silver Jews, Tanglewood Numbers (Drag City) CD

I promised a longer, “director’s cut” version of this review, but for now that version remains unfinished.

The Howling Hex, All Night Fox (Drag City) CD

Endless Boogie, 1 and 2 (Mound Duel) LPs

Review from the Baltimore City Paper here.

Excepter, Throne and Self Destruction (Load, Fusetron) CDs

Review here, also appeared in Swingset no. 7.

Ones/Hands, 1997-2005 (White Tapes) CD

Review here.

Delia Gonzalez & Gavin Russom, Days of Mars (DFA) CD

favorite reissues/compilations:

Gary Higgins, Red Hash (Drag City) CD
Crime, San Francisco’s Still Doomed (Swami) CD (review here)
Crain, Speed (Temporary Residence) CD (review here)
Roky Erickson, I Have Always Been Here Before (Shout Factory) 2CD (review here)
Bobby Beausoleil, Lucifer Rising Original Soundtrack (Arcanum) 2CD (review here)

Honorable Mentions:

The Double, Loose in the Air (Matador) CD; Thuja, Pine Cone Temples (Strange Attractors Audio House) CD; Big Whiskey, “Hats Off To Ryan Taylor” (White Tapes) cass; Andrew Paine and Richard Youngs, Mauve Dawn (Fusetron) LP; The SB, s/t (White Tapes) LP; prolly some more I’ve forgotten.

Silver Jews, Tanglewood Numbers (Drag City) CD

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Thanks to Michaelangelo Matos, music editor over at the Seattle Weekly, who published this Silver Jews review in their CD review section this week:

In certain rock-crit circles it’s a foregone conclusion that authenticity as a lyrical quality in pop music is a bugbear at best and a futile pursuit worthy of ridicule at worst. That is, listeners are advised not to read into, much less trust, the machinations and maneuverings of musicians and their lyrics. So how does one respond to Tanglewood Numbers, knowing of Silver Jews frontman David Berman’s drug-abetted suicide attempt, as recently related in The Fader? Do Berman’s more-than-messy ordeals account for the darker mood of the album? Berman, also a published poet, has made — by his own account(ing), in a recent Pitchfork interview — a decent living writing the sort of cute faux-country aphorisms that wouldn’t sound too out of place in that old Phil Hartman Saturday Night Live sketch, where the late comic actor sang songs like “I Just Found a Fifty-Dollar Bill” and “I’m Drunk (Again).” However, in Tanglewood Numbers there’s an undeniable love-soaked yet bleak melancholia twisted in with the cleverness that, even without knowledge of Berman’s gossip-page backstory, rings as “true” as any set of pop lyrics can. Album opener “Punks in the Beerlight” sets the tone, with Berman for the first time sharing the microphone with his wife, Cassie, whose poised vocals offer a counterpoint to his growling drawl (to Berman’s credit, his singing is also more assured here). When they sing a cheesy line like “I love you to the max,” it’s easy to believe that they believe it.

A longer version, with a l’il bit more on the rest of the songs on the album, will appear here shortly.

Buy Tanglewood Numbers from our friends at Drag City.